Gaslight (1944 film)

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This article is about the 1944 film Gaslight. For the 1940 release, see Gaslight.

Gaslight

Directed by	George Cukor
Produced by	Arthur Hornblow Jr.
Written by	Patrick Hamilton (play) John Van Druten Walter Reisch John L. Balderston
Starring	Charles Boyer Ingrid Bergman Joseph Cotten Dame May Whitty Angela Lansbury
Music by	Bronislau Kaper
Cinematography	Joseph Ruttenberg
Distributed by	MGM
Release date(s)	May 4, 1944 (U.S. release)
Running time	114 min.
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile

Gaslight is a 1944 film adapted from Patrick Hamilton's play Angel Street. It was the second version to be filmed; the first, released in Great Britain under the title The Murder in Thornton Square, had been made a mere four years earlier. This 1944 version of the story was directed by George Cukor and starred Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, and eighteen-year-old Angela Lansbury in her screen debut.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film opens just after world-famous opera singer Alice Alquist has been murdered. The perpetrator bolted, without the jewels he sought, after being discovered by Paula (Bergman), Alice's niece, who was raised by her aunt following her mother's death.

Paula is sent to Italy so that she can train to be an opera star with the same teacher who once trained Alice. She studies with him for years, all the while trying to forget that terrible night at Number 9 on Thornton Square in London.

Paula meets Gregory Anton (Boyer) and soon falls in love with him. She eventually ends her long tutelage to marry him. He persuades her they should live in the long-vacant London townhouse her aunt bequeathed her and, to help calm her anxieties, suggests they store all of Alice's furnishings away in the attic. Before they do, Paula discovers a letter addressed to her aunt by a man named Sergius Bauer, dated only two days before the murder, tucked away in a music book. Gregory's reaction is swift and violent, but he quickly composes himself, explaining his outburst as one of frustration at the bad memories his bride is experiencing.

After Alice's things are packed away in the attic and the door is blocked, things take a turn for the bizarre. At the Tower of London, Paula loses a brooch that Gregory has given her, despite its having been stored safely in her handbag. Pictures disappear from the walls of the house, footsteps are heard in the sealed attic, and the gaslights dim and brighten for no apparent reason. Gregory insinuates that Paula is responsible, but she professes no recollection of doing such things.

Gregory does everything in his power to isolate his wife from other people, allowing her neither to go out nor have visitors. On the one occasion when he does take her out to a musical gathering at a friend's house, he shows Paula his watch chain, from which his watch has mysteriously disappeared. When he finds it in her handbag, she falls into hysterics, and Gregory takes her home.

The young maid working at Number 9 does little to improve the situation. Whenever she shows up, her face betrays a feeling of disdain, and Paula becomes convinced that Nancy (Lansbury) loathes her.

Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight. She has discovered a letter.

The audience quickly learns Gregory is using very cruel and devious methods to convince Paula she is going mad so he can have her certified insane and removed from the house. There is a frighteningly palpable reason for his apparently absurd, unkind behaviour. Unknown to Paula, Gregory actually sought her out in Italy, managed to win her heart, married her, and suggested that they live in London, all so he could get back into the house he once abandoned in haste. He is in fact Sergius Bauer, the man who wrote the letter in the music book, and the man who murdered Alice Alquist. He still wants what he was looking for the night he murdered Paula's aunt: her jewels. He has been rummaging through Alice's belongings in the attic to find what he is certain is there, but they are so well hidden, he has been unable to find them.

Paula might actually end up believing she is utterly mad if not for a chance encounter with a stranger that day at the Tower of London. He turns out to be Inspector Brian Cameron of Scotland Yard (Cotten), an admirer of Alice Alquist since his childhood. By enlisting the support of the housekeeper Elizabeth [(Barbara Everest)] (who realizes something is amiss and suspects her master is at the root of it all) and a neighborhood busybody (Dame May Whitty), Cameron is able to delve into the long-cold case. The dramatic conclusion comes as he moves in to arrest Gregory on the very evening that the latter at last has discovered the jewels that he has been seeking for so long.

The dénouement partly involves Paula indulging herself in a bit of revenge, psychologically torturing Gregory after he has been bound to a chair, tantalizing him with the suggestion that she might free him so he can escape arrest, trial, and execution.

Spoilers end here.

From the film's title, "gaslighting" acquired the meaning of ruthlessly manipulating an individual, for nefarious reasons, into believing something other than the truth.

[edit] Awards and Nominations

Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman in the final confrontation.

At the 1944 Academy Awards, the film was nominated for four awards: Best Picture, Best Actress for Ingrid Bergman, Best Actor for Boyer, and Best Supporting Actress for Angela Lansbury. From that list, only Ingrid Bergman won.

The 1944 movie won an Oscar for Black and White Art Direction by William Ferrari. Inscription on the Oscar reads " Academy First Award to William Ferrari for Black and White Art Direction of GASLIGHT"